Effectiveness of Direct and Indirect Corrective Feedback on Iranian EFL Learners' Accuracy and Retention of Conditional Sentences Types I, II & III

Abstract

Corrective feedback and the way of delivering play an important part in learning English in an EFL context. This study aimed at investigating the extent to which different types of feedback on EFL learners’ grammatical errors would affect the level of their grammatical accuracy and retention of the structure of conditional sentences (Types I, II, III). 90 intermediate English female students in an EFL context were selected in an English language institute. This population was randomly divided into two experimental groups, one of which received indirect uncoded correction feedback and the other one indirect coded correction and the third group, control group, received direct error correction feedback. In conducting a quasi-experimental design, the present study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of three error correction strategies (Direct, Indirect coded and Indirect uncoded) through pre-test, post-test and Delayed post-test in a time span of 10 weeks. The results obtained by One Way ANOVA indicated that the students who were exposed to indirect coded correction feedback outperformed the students who were provided with direct correction feedback or indirect uncoded feedback. In addition, the findings in delayed post-test also showed that there were significant differences between the performance of the participants who were subject to indirect coded and direct error correction strategies.